Emeryville, Calif., police felt so badly about the tens of thousands of dollars in vandalism done to a first-time home-buyers residence, they decided to turn out in mass this month to help clean up the mess.
Detectives are continuing to investigate the havoc wreaked on the house bought last November by 41-year-old Frances Carty. Vandals caused $24,000 worth of damage, including cut gas lines, graffiti, broken doors and windows, and cement poured down the water main...

Should his nomination be confirmed, William Willett, 68, will have even less time than other police commissioners to make changes that he and county officials contend are vital to controlling soaring budget overruns at the Nassau County, N.Y., Police Department.
Willett, a 46-year veteran of the force, would become Long Island’s first black police commissioner. He was chosen by County Executive Thomas Gulotta to replace Donald Kane, who stepped down on March 23. Willett is also strongly endorsed by the Police Benevolent Association, the county’s largest police union...

As the new chief of police in Leesburg, Va., Joseph R. Price took command March 1 of a department where tensions still run high nearly a year after town officials fired the former chief in a swirl of accusations and counter-accusations.
Price, 48, came from the Montgomery County, Md., Police Department where he served for 24 years. Before his unanimous appointment by the Leesburg Town Council in January, Price oversaw the Montgomery County department’s Management Service Bureau, which included emergency communications, training, budget and finance, community outreach and technology and information systems...

Community policing and a greater participation in the city’s DARE program are two of the changes planned by Gloucester City, N.J.’s new police chief, William Johnson Sr., as part of his departmental restructuring effort.
One of the department’s most significant problems is communicating with civilians, said the 48-year-old Johnson. “It is important we work on communication and understanding the problems in the community,” he told The Philadelphia Inquirer. The city’s small size, just 2.2 square miles, means officers are often dealing with residents they have come into contact with before. “What’s the alternative?” asked Johnson. “Locking people away?”..

An autographed banjo donated by the country music trio the Dixie Chicks is being auctioned off on-line by the group Concerns of Police Survivors (COPS) in order to raise funds for programs to aid the families of officers killed in the line of duty.
The Dixie Chicks — Natalie Maines, Martie Ceadel and Emily Robison — met with some of those friends and relatives after performing last May at the National Peace Officers’ Memorial Day service in Washington, D.C., where they witnessed firsthand the grief inflicted on those who lose a loved one to line-of-duty death, said COPS...